Friday, 26 April 2013

Last-Week Links: 26 April 2013

Happy Friday. In some cases, it's an even happier Friday than normal because it's also a payday Friday, and we get to enjoy feeling flush for a few days. If you did want to celebrate in style, you could do worse than checking out the Andy Warhol sale at Fab, a collection of original posters and printed matter acquired directly from the Andy Warhol Foundation. The material dates from the 1960s to the 1980s, and cost wise from £120 to £1685. Alas this poster - produced for the 1985 African Emergency Relief Fund and featuring bits of artwork from Warhol, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat (prime A Thousand Miles of History stuff), as well as Roy Lichtenstein and Yoko One - has sold out. Otherwise I might have been forced to try and scrape the pennies together to buy it. Warhol fanatics of deep pockets also get the chance to buy his former townhouse this week: on the market for a mere $5.8 million.

Last year, I linked to the brilliant blog being built around the film Teenage, inspired by Jon Savage's fascinating book. The film had its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this week and sounds completely fascinating. Writer/Director Matt Wolf has given some more information about making the film on the blog, the hours and hours of archival material they trawled through, the four characters they came up with to bind the footage together (including one given voice by Ben Whishaw - hurrah!), the detail gone into the costumes and in recreating every detail of those all-important teenage bedrooms. I can't wait to see it.

Teenage ends with the end of World War II, and what's then conventionally considered the "birth of the teenager" in the 1950s. Their avoidance of looking at that already well-recorded and analyzed period when considered alongside the question dee9:14 posed, "the beginning of the end of mid-century?" What do you think? I am certainly bored of the high street doing lazy version of 50s designs but, as a whole, I imagine this trend might be one of those things where the original trend-setters are starting to move onto something new, but it'll take a long, long time for the rest of the world to catch up, and, regardless, the true mid-century lovers will keep on loving.

Perhaps Gucci knows what the next big trend will be. They've just bought the porcelain house Richard Ginori after all, in a slightly unlikely looking move. "Made in Italy" is a phrase I seem to be hearing a lot at the moment, and that's certainly the reason being cited by the company to justify the acquisition. This interesting piece sees it part of a subtle strategy to move the house away from the "me me me" identity built around the brand under Tom Ford. As I've mentioned before, even at its most "heritage" I still think Gucci remains glorious Eurotrashy, more luxury yachts than charitable works, so, I'll be eagerly watching to see if this new focus has an noticeable impact either on the brand or its clientele.

And so the weekend awaits, as seductive as Dita in this shoot for the Coveteur. What are you up to? I am going to make sure I watch the final of the Great British Sewing Bee before someone lets slip what happens, and I'm helping my sister look for her wedding dress. I suspect both events might involve tears. Enjoy your weekend - and don't forget to let me know if your weekend involves buying a Warhol.

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Visualize yourself as you looked on a beautiful autumn day last year. There's not much of the picture that survives. Not the hemline, waistline or the shoulderline ... If you're not a Last-Year Girl. You'll like the feel of a longer, fuller skirt flowing around you as you move ... You'll enjoy having hips again - without apologies; and the satisfaction of a small, rounded, tapering waist and of having it show in the snug bodice tops. You can have it all.